Final week Samsung touted a reasonably daring declare in the midst of their keynote for his or her latest smartwatch: They may decide your biking FTP (useful threshold energy, the max energy you possibly can preserve for roughly an hour). To do that, you’d want a biking energy meter, 4 minutes, and…effectively…that’s it.
Thus, I made a decision to provide this a whirl. Seems, the high quality print is fairly vital right here.
Doing The Take a look at:
I’m going to save lots of you a lot hours of troubleshooting, looking out, and in any other case attempting to determine how on earth to do that check. Regardless of this being one in every of a handful of recent options highlighted for the brand new watch of their keynote, there’s nearly no documentation on it. And by ‘nearly’, I imply ‘completely none in any respect’. The core of my problem was determining first find out how to pair an influence meter to the watch, after which second, find out how to set off an FTP check.
However I went again and punctiliously watched the keynote time and again, and browse the ultra-small textual content on the backside, together with some key tidbits within the keynote. Whereas the screens behind the person confirmed a 4-minute timer, in actuality, he talked about we don’t pair our energy meter to our watch, however moderately, a Samsung Galaxy cellphone.
And certain sufficient, after poking round within the Samsung Well being app settings, you are able to do precisely that (to seemingly each Bluetooth energy meter/coach I had close by), through Samsung Well being > Bike > … in higher nook > Equipment > Scan:
It appeared as if I used to be heading in the right direction, and with the facility meter paired to my cellphone, the subsequent little bit of trickiness although was determining find out how to set off an FTP check. It appeared within the video that it was extra of a post-ride state of affairs. Probably not certain what to do, I went forward and began a journey on my cellphone, one other on my watch, after which did a tough 4-minute effort. Once more, there’s completely *ZERO* steering on this. So I used to be simply making stuff up on the fly attempting to determine it out.
And albeit, if I can’t determine it out (somebody who actually exams these items for a dwelling), everybody else is hosed. In any occasion, I acquired every thing on the cellphone app prepared, and pressed begin on the watch.
[Fun Things I Learned #1: You cannot re-search for new power meters or any Bluetooth fitness accessories without cellular coverage/signal. Literally, the page won’t enumerate. Ensure you do this before you leave cell service.]
Seems, urgent begin on the watch was the fallacious factor to do. That’s since you as an alternative press begin on the cellphone, after which it takes over the watch (ending the watch session). Okay, high quality – cellphone wins. I then tapped to shut/lock the cellphone to stay in my again pocket. That was additionally the fallacious factor to do, it instantly paused the session. Thus, I resumed the session from the watch (useful). Significantly of us, I can’t make up these items.
Additionally, you’ll word under it exhibits ‘POW’ within the higher left nook, indicating energy meter related, together with “HRM”, which is the Samsung Galaxy Extremely watch. It’s unclear to me if the GPS right here is coming from the app or the watch on this state of affairs.
Now, for realz, off I went.
With zero directions, I merely went balls to the wall down the rowing basin bike path. Sadly, being the primary of two summer season days in The Netherlands (sure, I do know, it’s July 18th), there was a bunch of human and goose furnishings in the beginning. Nonetheless, I rapidly acquired up to the mark and held a fairly fixed energy of about 350-360w, save occasional goose dodging. After 4-mins 30 seconds, I ended, acquired the cellphone out, and stopped & saved the session.
Astoundingly, it instantly gave me an FTP worth. Stated worth was 272w:
I say ‘astoundingly’, as a result of in that crazy-ass high quality print up above, it technically stated I wanted one evening’s sleep with the cellphone/watch combo, in addition to another unicorn mud (Samsung Well being AI). I had neither. I hadn’t had bedtime relations with this watch but, although, I had slept with its sisters previously. Possibly that did the trick.
The second a part of ‘astoundingly’, is that this wasn’t really that far off of a worth. My ‘actual’ FTP floats between 290 and 310w, relying on the season/coaching/and so forth… Proper now, Xert places it at 308w (although, it will present 300w the subsequent day). TrainerRoad at 302w, and Garmin additionally at 308w. I’ve usually discovered Xert & TrainerRoad to be inside 10w of one another, and have confirmed to be traditionally fairly darn correct to precise FTP exams I do once I’m tremendous bored.
But, my day at the moment was fairly busy:
1) Two hour photoshoot on the bike (not likely a tough journey, simply plenty of cease/go/laborious/cease/go/laborious/and so forth within the solar…)
2) A 30-minute interval run
3) One other 10-15 minute energy meter calibration/bedding check (unrelated to the Samsung one).
4) Lastly, this FTP journey.
In different phrases, I’d have guessed it will predict low, and certainly – it did.
So, let’s go sleep with the watch, and provides it one other whirl tomorrow – this time on tremendous clear uninterrupted roads, with a great evening’s sleep.
[Fast Forward to The Next Day]
Doing the Take a look at Once more:
The subsequent day, with some good sleep behind me, I used to be able to sort out it once more. Albeit, nonetheless a bit fatigued from a busy week – however hey, the web can’t wait. As soon as once more I went out, and the Samsung app failed to connect with the facility meter. I futzed with it for some time, in all probability 30 minutes all in, earlier than it lastly discovered it once more. At this level, out I went:
This time I had much less geese, much less folks, and a bit extra energy to my identify. My route wasn’t fairly good for this, as I used to be ending up barely quick on super-clean distance every time. Nonetheless, I saved it at 4min 30sec, together with the time spent beginning/stopping the app.
At this level, it bumped up my FTP estimate from 272w to 279w. Unquestionably I left a bit of bit within the tank, given the imperfect course (and my potential to correctly tempo a 4-minute all-out effort). Nonetheless, roughly ~280w isn’t that far faraway from the decrease 300w estimate from Xert, particularly accounting for every week of fatigue (which might take Xert longer to account for).
Nonetheless, and most critically, Samsung really says you don’t must do an all-out effort. They are saying a mid to excessive effort is seemingly adequate. In fact, you’ll solely see this textual content *AFTER* you’ve accomplished a power-meter geared up journey, after which tapped on an FTP estimate. Additional, it says to only hold driving with it, to enhance estimates (like most different items). So I made a decision to exit for a extra affordable 40-minute journey, with maybe one Strava section tossed in for funsies.
Upon ending my journey…I discovered that the facility meter connectivity had apparently failed about 2-minutes into the journey and by no means resumed. As a result of you possibly can’t see the facility meter information on the watch itself, you don’t know until publish journey. Thus, this whole journey was a waste of time (save two windmill sightings).
However wait, there’s extra. You see, even in instances the place the facility meter information does document, Samsung doesn’t ship that information to Strava or seemingly another platform. I had linked up my rides to Strava, and none of them present energy meter sensor information.
[Note: This is different than how Strava handles the Apple Watch power meter data. In the Samsung case, Samsung is delivering the completed file to Strava as-is. Strava just processes it like any other data. Whereas for the Apple Watch, Strava themselves accesses the Apple Health data on your phone, and then decides not to pull the power meter data Apple added last summer…because…I don’t know why. TLDR: Samsung screws up their own power data, whereas Strava screws up Apple’s. In the case of Apple/Strava, you can use HealthFit to get that data in there properly.]
And whereas the Samsung Well being App does present the facility information, it appears extremely smoothed (or outright blocky), so it’s a bit difficult of make use of that – not less than in it’s present type.
Wrap-Up:
I’m genuinely shocked right here on so many fronts. First, I’m really kinda shocked that Samsung appears to get the ultimate quantity in the proper ballpark. It’s most up-to-date estimate (280w), looks as if it’s in all probability aligned to a extra fatigue-driven week I’ve had than my regular FTP that floats within the 290w-310w vary. So, I’ll really give it a go on that.
Nonetheless – and this can be a huge ‘nevertheless’ – each different facet of the Samsung biking energy meter implementation is completely dumpster fireplace standing. Let’s simply summarize:
A) There’s zero documentation on find out how to do any of this, in any method.
B) You don’t really pair to the watch, you pair to your Samsung Well being cellphone app
C) Samsung gained’t work with Energy meters for those who lose mobile protection
D) You possibly can’t see the facility meter information/metrics in your watch
E) The cellphone app will seemingly fail in some unspecified time in the future to document your energy meter information
F) The ability meter information isn’t despatched to any third events, together with Strava
G) It does nevertheless, seemingly get a ballpark-ish right FTP through the app
I suppose I proceed to be perplexed by Samsung’s well being/health efforts. Somebody, and a few staff, spent plenty of time on designing this characteristic. Heck, you possibly can even export out a post-workout picture from Samsung Well being along with your FTP overlaid on it (critical). However you possibly can’t export out the facility meter information, or, see it in your watch. So shut, but so far-off.
With that, keep tuned for my full in-depth evaluate of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Extremely’s optical HR sensor, GPS accuracy, and extra. Similar goes for the Galaxy Watch 7, and Galaxy Ring. Hopefully, it’ll be higher.
Thanks for studying!
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